hh_mirror | ::Open RP - A's Garden::

"Which... one?" A tilted his head, clearly confused. He'd been dead before B used the alias. "I don't, there... only one, only..."

"You see, I know two people who've used the name. In some ways one looks and acts something like the first, but in others..."

Jezz listened with some interest. Naomi, aware of this, kept her words oblique for the moment.

A's eyes widened at that, realizing who she meant. "No," he said, almost moaning. "They're not alike, no, no, not, not...." he shook his head, wringing his hands.

Taken aback, Naomi lowered her voice. "No... of course not. It's all on the surface."

And not so much on the surface either, for her. Otherwise she might have had a heart attack when she saw L in the subway, well before he threw himself at her.

"Not... he doesn't even... it's fake, it's all fake, mimicry won't, won't make him more, no, no, Backup isn't good enough, he's not, not..."

A was still crouching, almost hunched in on himself, but there was a faint defiant gleam in his eyes. How, how could she dare compare B to L!

Jezz was looking at Naomi as if she was supposed to know something about this. She gave him a Look back.

B, the candidate to succeed L - was A another candidate? (Though what kind of name was Backup?)

"Of course not," she repeated. "Otherwise he wouldn't be a murderer, would he?"

"B," A whispers. Murder? Well, why not? B would do anything to keep himself amused. "He's filthy, he... he doesn't leave anything alone."

"He has a lot of nerve." Showing up at the scene of his crime as an "unprivate detective" + walking her through the clues he'd planted himself (she recalled his vehement insistence on Akazukin Chacha's relevance) + attempting self-immolation = oodles and oodles of nerve if nothing else.

"Not when he's outnumbered," A said, and giggled. The memory of torturing B always made him smile. "No, no, he pleads then, yes."

Naomi blanched somewhat, unnerved despite herself. B had been well outnumbered in the courtroom, she remembered, but he hadn't pleaded. He'd sat there a sullen bandage-swathed wraith, giving everyone the creeps. What, she wondered, would make him plead?

"So you struck back," said Jezz, looking vicariously pleased, some of the dots connected in his mind. "Good for you."

A still looks distressed, but he smiles at Jezz with a touch of savagery. "Yes." As if he'd done it unaided, but he didn't see the point for going into detail. "And if I need to I will again."

And now for something completely different! "You know about Kira, right?" On the slim off-chance L hadn't told him.

Jezz, who'd been smiling back, gave her another look that said damn it, I wanted details.

"That was..." Hadn't L mentioned that name? "That was someone who killed people, a lot of people."

In other circumstances, maybe she would have figured that if L hadn't told A already he must have had a reason to. In these circumstances, she said "Yes. That's true. And I think you should know, Kira is also here. In this place. His name is Light Yagami."

"I know," he told her. He'd pieced it together from what Ryuk had told him. "I don't like him."

"So you do. Good." She didn't know about the piecing together, just that he knew more than his initial description might have suggested. "He says he doesn't remember any of it, but I'm not about to trust him twice. I would've been surprised if... Ryuzaki... hadn't told you himself, considering what he did to..."

"...what?" Despite the fact that he did it fairly often, A disliked it when people left sentences dangle. "He said it was good that I didn't like Light."

"That... that would make sense. I know I wouldn't be too happy if someone important to me-" Because at the least, she could figure out that L was important to A. "- made friends with the person who killed m-"

Her reasoning caught up and her mouth shut.

Please, she thought, let L just have not mentioned it to him through some brain blip. Happens to the best of us, world-class detectives included, right?

A might not officially be a world-class detective, but he could certainly piece that together.

His already fair complexion went white, then greenish, and he stood and ran back toward the castle.

"Damn it." Naomi followed, for the first few feet running to overtake but quickly slowing, because what else could she say to him?

Jezz stood alone at the edge of the garden for a while, staring after them. Well, he thought, finally heading off his own way, at least there's no more singing.

L had been coming out with a book, for some sunshine and maybe a pear or two.

He drops the book when he sees A's progress toward him. This doesn't look promising.

When he reaches L, A flings himself to the ground at his feet, sobbing. His forehead brushes the ground.

Naomi started to run again when she spotted L, and eventually caught up, nearly doubled over. "I told him - what happened in the Kira case. I... I guess you had a reason not to. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." He's already dropped down in front of A, and is lifting him up. He loses his balance and ends up sitting on the ground himself, persistently trying to drag A on top of him and not the dirt.

"A, dearest, A." L suspects he's just going to have to cry this one out.

"I, I, I... we have to, to..." All he can think of is types of violence to visit upon the person of Light Yagami. B would barely have been a warmup.

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